Botswana Diamonds granted exclusivity period extension

Aim-listed Botswana Diamonds has been granted an extension to an agreement, signed in February, providing it with a three-month exclusivity period to review data on 13 licence blocks in the Gope region, in the south-west of the Orapa region of Botswana.

In February, the diamond exploration company signed a memorandum of agreement with a private South African company, which held an 85% interest in the 13 licence blocks, to review the data and decide whether or not it wanted to acquire an equity interest in the licence areas.
The exclusivity period had now been extended to June 14.
Botswana Diamonds stated that its board was pleased with the results of its in-house evaluation. To confirm the findings, the company’s joint venture (JV) partner in the Orapa area would now apply its technology to the initial analyses.
The JV partner expected to make its findings available by the end of May.

“Our results, so far, are exciting, but diamond exploration is high-risk, so we have requested this extension to enable additional work to be undertaken by the multinational partner working with us in Orapa. Our partner is using its unique technology to evaluate and corroborate our findings,” Botswana Diamonds chairperson John Teeling commented in an update to shareholders on Thursday.